


Just Enough

by wednesdaysky



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, M/M, POV Varric Tethras, Post-All That Remains, Pre-Slash, Purple Hawke, Varric backstory speculation, Wakes & Funerals, minor appearance by Fenris and other cast members
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 14:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10878648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesdaysky/pseuds/wednesdaysky
Summary: Varric Tethras was not accustomed to being at a loss for words.





	Just Enough

Varric Tethras was not accustomed to being at a loss for words.

He'd been taking care of the funeral arrangements without being asked. Gamlen had been too far into his cups to be of much help, but had at least contributed that lavender was his sister's favorite color and he thought she would've liked daisies in the flower arrangements. Varric asked around his informants until someone knew which social circles she'd frequented among the nobles, sent out the appropriate invitations, hired some snooty fellow who knew what was in fashion for Kirkwall human rites this year. She'd been a classy lady; he would never want to disappoint her with the quality of her decorations.

Hawke had, apparently, been in his room. Aveline had passed along his thanks for covering the logistics. Varric hadn't actually talked to him in person yet.

Anders came and went, made Varric sit still long enough to heal the scrape down his cheek he'd gotten in the foundry, and sportingly took Hawke's dog for a walk. Merrill dropped off no less than two huge bouquets of mountain herbs and wildflowers, one from herself and one "from the clan", according to her, though there was no accompanying note. Sebastian managed not to get on a single one of Varric's nerves for once, just silently appearing whenever Varric walked into the Chantry, helping him get every bit of paperwork and scheduling arranged with quiet efficiency. Isabela brought gifts for Varric himself for some reason: a very nice black doublet in a dwarven size, appropriate yet stylish (how did she _know_ he didn't have anything good to wear?); and a pretty decent bottle of brandy, the instructions for which were to open it with Hawke after Varric was "done being stupid".

He wasn't actually being _stupid_ , of course. He just. Didn't know what to say. He was helping in his own way, and everyone else was around to help look after Hawke more directly. Varric would go when the words finally came to him.

Usually, on the thankfully rare occasions when one of his people kicked it and his personal touch was needed, he hired someone to make the arrangements and went on his way. It worked well enough for informants, subordinates, House Tethras's retainers. He hadn't been this personally involved in planning someone's funeral since his own mother had passed. Bartrand, at the time, had been in the middle of some admittedly delicate talks with an Antivan spice merchant and couldn't be bothered with any paperwork on top of that. So it had all fallen on the younger son, since of course, he'd _clearly_ had nothing better to do and didn't need some time to himself or anything. Varric's memory of the affair was a little jumbled, partly on account of having been almost ludicrously sleep-deprived until the whole thing was done. He hadn't even been able to drink himself through it. After seeing the way she went, at the end, alone and small and wasted to bones in her bed, nothing but her less-wanted son and her wine bottle for company--

Well, he hadn't quite been able to touch a drop of booze until the next Wintersend or so. He'd rarely ever been so grateful for the fact that his people didn't dream.

Maybe that was what he could say to Hawke. _Hey, I can totally relate to having your mom go looking like a zombie!_ Sure. That would definitely go over well.

...really, the more he thought about it, the more he considered that it actually might. Garrett Hawke was the man who'd never met a joke too tasteless to be broached, after all. Too bad if Varric actually used it then he'd have to explain what he was talking about. Ah, well, back to the drawing board.

Several nobles sent him runners to RSVP for the wake. He wasn't actually aware he'd scheduled a wake; that must have been something the snooty fashionable human had taken care of in suitably snooty fashionable...fashion for him. Chances of getting Hawke to actually go to a wake seemed about as good as the chances of getting Gamlen to show up sober for it. Varric supposed he himself would have to stick his head in long enough to thank everyone for coming. And he needed to check whether catering had been arranged already, find out the schedule and what building his man had rented, probably see to having at least one carriage standing by for tipsy guests, maybe ask about musicians... or maybe just see whether some sisters might come from the Chantry to recite some more?...

Before he knew it the day of the funeral had snuck up on him already, and an hour before the ceremony he found himself pacing around a Chantry back room in Isabela's gifted doublet, trying to decide what kind of stationery to order for thank-you cards. Hawke was unlikely to give a rat's ass whether a bunch of strangers got thanked for their attendance at all, of course, but Varric had always tried to thoughtfully help manage his friend's reputation; one never knew when the goodwill of powerful people would turn up useful--

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a skinny black-clad torso directly blocking his line-of-sight.

"Varric," said Fenris, with an acerbic stare straight down from where he'd placed himself directly in the dwarf's path, " _what_ are you doing back here?"

Varric looked up, looked up a little further, squinted in the slight disorientation of having his train of thought disrupted, and resisted the instinctive smart-ass urge to ask whether the elf's nice black mourning clothes were stolen. Maybe Isabela had provided for him too.

"What do you think I'm doing back here?" he frowned after a second, however, still a little confused by the line of questioning. He took a step or two back so he could properly look Fenris in the face, quirking a curious brow at him. "Been in the middle of getting shit ready. The sister should be coming in soon, and I think Sebastian said he was going to do a--"

" _Varric_ ," Fenris cut him off again, raising his own brows and just sounding even more pointedly derisive, if that was possible.

"I have only just arrived. _Hawke_ is standing at the back door, and he is _alone_. Now _what_ are you doing here?"

Varric stopped. Opened his mouth, furrowed his brow. Closed his mouth again.

Then Hawke was, what -- just standing there at the entrance, waving his friends right along? Without coming in?

Maybe he was... waiting for someone in particular.

"...let's just say I was rehearsing," Varric managed at last; and he gave a small smile and a jaunty salute before turning to be on his way.

  

*

 

It had been nearly a week since Varric had been in the same room with him. Hawke looked about as he would have expected -- sporting bags under his eyes and slightly wrinkled clothes, the beaten-down pallor of someone getting by on too little sleep, too little food, and too much wine. But he saw Varric coming, and from somewhere he summoned up a smile, and for a moment he was just Hawke. Warm, welcoming, a little sheepish. Varric nudged a hand against the small of his back and coaxed him inside.

"No fair sneaking in without me," Hawke murmured with a small tired chuckle, stopping in an empty alcove off the foyer to pull off his jacket. "Were you going to make me walk down the Chantry aisle all by myself, Varric? Such a scandal. It'd be like the groom missing his bride."

Honestly, most days Varric really didn't think anyone would blame him for being quietly in love with his best friend. He knew it was never meant to be, of course. Supporting cast members like him didn't rate a romance with a main character like Garrett Hawke, and he couldn't _exactly_ call himself unattached enough to pursue a relationship, and at any rate there were plenty of other suitors vying for Hawke's affection. The man certainly wasn't hard to love to begin with, considering his wit, his easy smile and infectious laughter, his stupid sense of humor covering a loyal and startlingly caring heart. There was all that, and then he had to go and make jokes like _this_.

"Sorry," Varric murmured back, finding an answering laugh to show that he appreciated the effort.

"You weren't really _just_ waiting for me to show out there, were you? Didn't quite realize you'd be looking for me."

"You've been a hard man to find recently," said Hawke softly back, shrugging and offering an awkward smile as he hung up his jacket, then plopped onto a nearby bench. "I know you've been awfully busy on my behalf, but-- Guess I might've missed seeing your devilishly smirking face. Though maybe I, ah, could've improved my odds by actually leaving my bedroom at some point. Possibly."

Varric gave a little shrug in return, glanced out some more into the empty hall, then joined Hawke on that bench to clap a hand against the other's shoulder with an answering quirk of his lips. (Damned human-size furniture, his feet were dangling--)

"Let's see, then -- you were hoping for something like this?" he proposed, arranging his features into a suitably rakish grin. That actually got some real laughter from Hawke, who nodded his head as his shoulders shook and stared down at his hands in his lap and seemed strangely relieved by this one stupid gesture.

"Perfect, perfect. Hang onto that one, should be great to distract Anders with around the card table. If he's tired enough I can just see him breaking out into giggles--..."

Hawke reached up to wipe at his face a little as his chuckles died down; and the pair sat there in silence again for a little while, and Varric stared up into the vaulted ceiling of the Chantry's back foyer.

"...I owe you an apology, actually," Varric said at last with a quiet sigh.

"I know I probably should've come by. Just to... say hello, I mean. Report that I wasn't dead, that sort of thing. I'm just. ...Not so good at this shit, Hawke," he admitted at last, the murmured words accompanied by a one-shouldered shrug.

"Don't have any better excuse than that. I didn't wanna pop in and give some kind of useless platitude about how sorry I was and then...walk out and leave you to it again. But I couldn't quite come up with anything _good_ to say instead. ...guess for once in my life I have absolutely failed at thinking on my feet. Talk about embarrassing."

He thought he could feel Hawke's weight leaning against his side; so he...leaned back into it, just a little.

Hawke just gazed down at him for a moment with a heavy stare before he too shrugged, and gave a tired, warm little smile again.

"Oh, I don't know, Varric," he said softly back.

"I think that was pretty good just now."

 

*

 

They sat together at the funeral, with their other friends spread on either side across the pew. Aveline, in full ceremonial armor, held a handkerchief against her stoically leaking countenance nearly the whole time. Hawke was stone-faced through it all, sitting up rigidly straight as a sister recited, but his fingers were curled very tight around the bottom hem of Varric's black doublet.

Afterward Varric took him home, opened up that bottle of brandy, and told Hawke about his mother.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time I had ambitions of polishing this up and fleshing it out a little more, but since months have gone by without me managing to find the time, I figured I ought to just go ahead and post it.
> 
> If you'd like to talk mHawke/Varric sometime, feel free to hit me up on Tumblr! My main blog is @wednesdaysky and I have a DA sideblog, @starfanged, which is mostly just reblogs of cool stuff.


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